11.) Up and In; in West Texas......And Unappreciated George Orwell References.....

Petrified Fire! the sign announces at the trail head.  The boulders that line the trail and the ridges on either side of me were once liquid in deep underground chambers.  Millions of years of shifting tectonic plates slowly pushed this liquid up through fissures and crevasses until it cooled near the earth’s surface.  Erosion of softer rocks and soil layers eventually exposed them, giving us the oddly shaped rock ‘plugs’ I’m looking at now.  They're everywhere, these things. Growing right up out of the earth.  Accompanied by wispy clouds on an endless sky the view is beautifully alien.  

The trail follows the valley floor, steep up slopes on either side of me are littered with spires, and pinnacles that conjure up images of castle turrets. Eyes on the horizon watching for approaching armies. A mile in and the trail stars to climb. Up and over mammoth boulders and between others that could easily crush me to bits if wrestled from their resting spots.  They’re all petty well nestled and I reach the end of the trail without incident. I come around the last bend and there it is, Balanced Rock.

Not so impressive in size or stature, but it’s perched in the most precarious of spots.  I’m relatively diligent when it comes to reading all the nerdy little info signs that are posted all over, but nowhere that I saw, did any of them address the events would result in such a large rock coming to rest in such a fashion. It had to be just pure dumb luck that it happened to plunk down between two spires, creating a window that you can actually walk through.  I do just that, although with a fair amount of apprehension.  It’s the size of a Volkswagen, significantly smaller than a lot of the surrounding boulders but still impressive.  I snap a few pictures and then stretch out on a ledge below it.  The cool hard surface relieves some of the pressure on my back, I interlace my fingers behind my head and take the cool air into my lungs as the sun warms my skin.  Moments like this raise my confidence, put me more at ease with the decision i’ve made to disappear for a while with no plan or final destination in mind.  It might all blow up in my face one day, but even if it does it’s better than wasting away in a city I hate, at job that numbs my brain until I’m too old and feeble to do anything about it.  I’m beginning to think this was the right decision.  
The road to the hot springs is another treacherous one.  A cliff of brittle limestone straight up over the top of the jeep on my right, and a sheer drop off straight down on my left.  It’s the type of road that the Roadrunner would trick Wild E. Coyote into running off of with a fake tunnel or some sort of Acme contraption.  Apparently, there used to be a kind of resort here, taking advantage of the allure of the hot springs.  The remains of a store and of rentable rooms still stand at the trailhead.  Now all fenced off so you can’t go inside, but a sign in the doorway shows what it was like in it’s heyday. In the picture a bespectacled woman leans on a counter with shelves filled with loaves of bread and canned goods behind her. The spring itself has been surrounded by a rock wall that forms a pool, big enough for maybe a dozen people, that fills up with 105 degree spring water.  

It’s constantly pumping, 24 hours every single day, so a notch has been cut from the top of the outermost wall that faces the river.  The water spills over this wall and keeps the pool at a constant depth.  You can jump the wall and sit under the waterfall so that the warm spring water runs down your back while your feet are suspended in the icy waters of the Rio Grande.  

This is Xanadu, Shangri-La.  Misty hints of clouds tiger stripe a royal blue sky, just enough to make the intense Texas sun tolerable.  I spend about 15-20 minuets in the hot spring water and then vault over the wall into the frigid river.  The alternation between the hot and cold is a miracle for my back.  I’m hopping from rock to rock, and back over the wall, diving deep to the river bottom, finding holes where it’s over my head and rock shelves where I can sit and let the cold water do its magic.  Things that would have been unthinkable in my state just a few hours prior.  My spirits are soaring and I chat with all the people that come and go throughout the day.  
A group of bikers stops in to soak for a while and they tell me about the town of Terlingua and the Starlight Theater.  Theres mention of a porch out front where all the old hippies from town meet up for beers.  I instantly take note and plan on stopping by on my way out of the park, it sounds like my kind of place.   
     I get out of the water only to reheat leftovers for lunch.  Rice, corn, and a can of chicken noodle soup.  It’s actually pretty tasty despite it’s simplicity, only cost about 4 bucks and fed me for nearly 4 days. After lunch, I’m right back in the water, relaxing and bullshitting with each new group that shows up. I arrived at about 9:30 in the morning and I don’t towel off and head back to camp until almost 6 in the evening.  Today was the epitome of what this trip is supposed to be.  Zero obligations, no where to report back to, nothing that has to get done.  Stay where I am for 5 minuets or for 8 hours directed only by mood and desire…perfection.